In this exhibit you can learn about the new system of higher education created by the Morrill Act of 1862, which used proceeds from Native lands in the West to fund agricultural and mechanical colleges throughout the United States. By Kenny Barnes.
INDIGENOUS LANDS FUND THE MORRILL ACT
The Morrill Act of 1862 is often viewed as the most pivotal step in the development of America’s higher education system. It not only expanded the curriculum from the traditional liberal arts to technical and agricultural studies, it also made higher education a reality for thousands of Americans who otherwise would not have attended college. However, often absent from the discussion are the Morrill Act's ties to the federal government’s expropriation of land from indigenous communities. Beginning in the early 19th century, through unratified questionable treaties and land cessions achieved through violence, the US federal government seized the land that went on to be used to fund the Morrill Act from almost 250 indigenous tribes. In total, the federal government seized approximately 10.7 million acres of land from these tribes, paying less than $400,000 in total. This land was then divided into roughly parcels and distributed to states, with each receiving 30,000 acres per member of Congress. Proceeds from the sale of this land and subsequent investments were then used to fund the endowments of 52 land-grant universities.
High Country News Land-Grab University Project
The Land-Grab Universities (LGU) project (Lee and Ahthone 2020) allows readers to directly trace the dispossession of indigenous lands to the economic gain of the 52 Land-grant universities. As the map above shows, the parcels given to land-grant universities were not land for campuses. Parcels of land could be located thousands of miles away from the University’s campus, and in most instances the land was sold to in the form of scrip. For example, Virginia received nearly 300,000 acres of land in western states, with nearly all of it having been indigenous lands within the past half-century. Sale of the land raised $190,644 for the initial endowment of Virginia’s land-grant colleges, a 44:1 return on the payments made to indigenous tribes for the land. Typically, a state's governor appointed a commissioner to oversee the sale of the land the state acquired from the Morrill Act. Scrip was bid on by buyers, who ranged from individuals and families looking to move west, to land companies and individuals looking to profit reselling the land. In many instances, states sold their shares to brokers, who sometimes brought massive quantities of land. Gleason F. Lewis, a land broker, bought the entirety of Kentucky's script and more than half of Pennsylvania's, totaling more than 700,000 acres of formerly indigenous lands.
By the early 20th century, over 10 million acres of the indigenous land had been redistributed to private buyers, totaling $22.8 million in university endowments. While the Morrill Land-Grant Act did not necessarily cause the involuntary removal of indigenous tribes from their lands, it did give states a way to make use of and profit from land that had been previously acquired through force.
Location Certificate for New York State Land Scrip, Piece No.1189, located for Ezra Cornell, 1866. Image courtesy of Cornell University Library.
Today, many states continue to hold and profit from land they received from the Morrill Act. In fact, in 2019, High Country News found that at least 16 land grant colleges still held at least half a million acres of land from the Morrill Act. Many of these states are located in the Midwest and West. Since they received Morrill Act lands from within their border, they continue to hold the surface and mineral rights to the land. Idaho, for example, still profits from over 33,000 acres of unsold Morrill Act land. Split between timberland, rangeland, and farmland, the land netted the state nearly $360,000 in revenue in 2019 alone. For all of the land Idaho received from the Morrill Act, the federal government paid indigenous tribes just $1,214 total. Like some other land-grant universities however, the University of Idaho has publicly acknowledged that it rests on land ceded by indigenous tribes, and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), recognizing the 11 affected tribes sovereignty. However, nowhere in the schools MOU is there mention of the continued revenue produced by the land, and as of 2018 less than 1% of students enrolled identified as American Indian or Alaskan Native.
Timber on land they received from the Morrill Act continues to produce revenue for Idaho.
On the millions of acres of land states sold rests apartment buildings, highways, churches, airports, and more. California received a total of 148,636 acres of land from the Morrill Act, all within its border. Much of this acreage came from unratified treaties, including land seized from the Chumash, Yokuts and Kitanemuk tribes in 1851. The land became the propert of the University of California, and today the Directors Guild of America sits atop it.
